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Lately I've found myself rather surprised at the lack of hype surrounding the immanent arrival of the first astronauts on the international space station. I don't know whether it's just me or not, but I was rather surprised the other day to discover that most of the work on the thing had been completed and they were sending 3 men up to live on it. I thought they were still in the production stages. At any rate, all the best to the boys up there, who should be docking (or attempting to dock) sometime today.

In other news, Australia, lacking Halloween and Thanksgiving to break up the months holiday wise, are already getting into the Christmas swing – from trees in department stores to tinsel in post-offices. It's quite strange. Mind you, Christmas over here tends to be strange – I always find it quite amusing to sing carols about snow in 40 degree heat. However, we do have our own, rather unique November holiday – the Melbourne Cup, which I hold as proof that my fellow countrymen have all been affected by the heat in some bizarre manner. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race, held, you guessed it, in Melbourne, on the first Tuesday of every month, which puts it next week. Everything stops for the running of the Melbourne Cup. When I was at school, the entire college would head out to the oval and listen to it via some really shoddy speakers and hold mock-races. Practically every single workplace holds a betting pool. Doctor's practices and post-offices set up tv's and radios. People pull sickies and go to their local race track for a flutter and a drink or ten in a funny hat before the actual race itself. All the radio stations stop broadcasting their normal programs and do the Cup. Everything that can stop, does stop.

Australia is a weird place.

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